Britain to Admit 1,400 Refugee Doctors to War Service

January 15, 1941

LONDON (Jan. 14)

The British Government shortly will permit 1,400 refugee doctors from Allied countries to serve in the armed forces, hospitals, nursing homes, first aid posts and air raid shelters, it was reported today. They will not be allowed to engage in private practice, however.

The Government’s willingness to consider such a move is the result of a campaign conducted by 300 Czech doctors, headed by Dr. J. Levy, formerly of Prague University.

Two hundred alien internees, most of them Jewish, have returned from Canada. A number of them were reinterred here pending final consideration of their cases. Others are joining the Pioneer Corps, the remainder being agricultural trainees and workers returning to the farms where they worked before being sent to Canada.

The internees arrived in civilian clothing and unguarded. They praised the work of Alexander Paterson, special Home Office delegate sent to Canada to select those to be released.

Meanwhile, a sensational indictment of the Home Office’s policy on release of internees was made by Sir Andrew MacFadyean, member of one of the recently-appointed tribunals and former secretary of the Dawes Committee, in a letter to The Times.

Terming the Home Office’s methods “less a measure of disinterment than a face-saving device,” Sir Andrew declared the tribunal examining the cases of internees not eligible for the Pioneer Corps because of age and health could not be expected, at its present rate of progress, to make its last recommendation before the Spring of 1944.

He suggested that if disinterment was really desired, the Home Secretary should order the release within four weeks of all those not specifically suspected and reserve the tribunals for cases of real doubt and difficulty.